Such · a · pretty · girl · Happy · in · an · ugly · place

One of my biggest complaints with the smart car is the woeful lack of dc outlets. There is one port located underneath the dash in the middle of the car, above the cup holders. I have yet to discern why exactly car companies think it’s a great idea to put the outlets near the cup holders. The cups always end up blocking access to the outlets, or the outlets get sticky from spilled drink.

Anyway, I have one outlet and two devices that need said outlet. One is my ipod, which is constantly plugged in because I use this ipod aux input adapter/charger. It bypasses the internal amp in the ipod and makes for much better sound quality than plugging the aux cable into the headphone jack. Since that needs to be plugged in constantly, when my blackberry dies (oh, and it dies quite frequently. I’m terrible at keeping it charged.), I either have to ride in silence or tough it out with the radio. This is entirely unacceptable to me, so I took it upon myself to remedy this issue.

I know that I could just buy a dc splitter, but there are a few reasons I opted against it. The main being the location of the aux jack in the glove box. It only makes sense to have the ipod charger also in the glove box. There’s nothing more embarrassing than having people want to look at the inside of your car and having your dash be a gigantic mangled mass of wires, and on top of that, there’s the whole theft issue. So, installing an alternate dc jack in the glove box it was.

There are two ways to do this, one being to buy a ponytail adapter (part #211 545 13 01. $4-5)from smart with the proper terminal(part #011 545 84 26. $2-3). I opted out of this because it was going to cost more than $7, not including the wiring and fuse which you’d still have to buy. And none of the Mercedes dealerships around here had either part in stock. More info about using the proper parts at evilution.

I saw on 451s that there was a much cheaper way to plug into the SAM unit, just plugging the fuse in directly. The friction will hold it in just fine.

here’s what you need:

• one 12v dc accessory outlet (I used this one from radioshack, because it’s the cheapest I could find)
• one 10amp automotive fuse
• three female quick connects
• one loop terminal (I couldn’t find a link to this, but it’s a crush connector with a metal loop in the end
• some wire (i used 18gauge, but I don’t really think it matters as long as it’s rated for the voltage and amperage.)
• something to cut, strip, and crimp wire
• something to cut a hole in the dash (I used an xacto knife and do not recommend that if you have access to a drill with a bit that will cut a hole about the size of a quarter. The plastic is about 1/8″ thick, and it takes forever to cut by hand)
• a 10mm ratchet, no, a wrench will not work.
• a torx25 driver

The outlet from radioshack comes with this giant triangular mounting bracket and screws, which can be discarded along with the wires. I found the wire wasn’t quite long enough to reach all the way to the SAM unit and I had to run my own. Assuming you have a decently stocked toolbox/electrical kit, you can probably get out of this only having spent $10.

First thing is emptying out your glove box. The entire left-hand side of the box has clearance in the back for installing an outlet. You can put the outlet anywhere within the boxed area.

Next, drill the hole, or if you’re doing it the hard way, grab a quarter. Place the quarter where you would like the hole and trace around it with the knife. After about 5 mins, you should make it through and have a nice plug of plastic for your efforts. There is a small ridge of plastic on the side of the outlet, you may need to cut a small notch for that.

Attach the female quick connects to the wire and slide them onto the terminals of the outlet. Slide the outlet into place, pulling the wire into the floorboard.

The easiest way to run the wire is to remove the radio. I realize this sounds excessive, but it’s only 5 screws. A great walkthrough for removing the radio is over here on evilution. The only thing I have to add to it is what happens when you lose the screw behind the button panel. If you drop the screw, it will fall down behind the existing outlet, near the cupholder. Five screws and some tabs hold that piece of trim on. The screw that holds on the cupholder is one of these, and is a slightly larger torx bit.

After running the wires through to the driver’s side, the rest is pretty simple. Connect the loop end onto the ground  and attach it to the grounding bolt. Then connect the remaining female quick connect to the lead, slide that over one leg of the fuse and plug the other leg of the fuse onto the side of the SAM unit. The four places closest to you are switch lives, the ones toward the front of the car are constant lives.

Plug in your ipod, do a dance of victory, and enjoy!

The smart fortwo has definitely been the best car I’ve ever worked on. Everything is super accessible, and the pieces are put together logically. I’m excited for when my warranty runs out and I get to really start modifying it!

crossposted from fuzzdecay.com.

I don't usually do these, but i have more than a one line answer to this one.

My birthday party when I was turning... 9, i believe, included a sleep over. The plan was that a few of my friends would come home with me from school on friday, and the rest of the guests would show up saturday afternoon for the actual party.

That weekend was when "the storm of the century" hit south georgia. It was a pretty incredible storm --- lots of hail, tornadoes and awesomeness, i'm sure --- that my friends and i slept through completely. We woke up the next morning to my mother bursting into the bedroom and telling us to look out the window. it was snowing (flurries that didn't stick) in the middle of march, which is unheard of in south georgia. Mid-march is full fledged spring down there.

Upon coming back inside from playing in the "snow", my mom told me that no one was coming to my party other than the girls who were already there because of the storm. And that our house didn't have power because a tree fell on the power lines. This was the beginning of my tradition of shitty birthdays, i believe.

Due to the extent of the storm damage, we were without power for close to a week. Everything in the house was electric. We had no central heat or air, no lights, no fridge, no stove or oven, nothing. The only thing we did have was a tiny natural gas burning space heater. We cooked all of our meals (mostly soup and other canned goods) and my grandfather made coffee on the space heater until the power company could finally get out and fix the power lines/cut up the tree.

I very vividly remember walking into the dining room and seeing my grandmother put a can of soup through the grating of the space heater and giving her a serious "wtf?" look. But now that i own my own place, i wonder what i'd do if i was without power for that long. there's not a single non-electric thing in here.

what I heard on my most recent walk through the office:

“That lube callout is too high”

“…boom de ya da, boom de ya da, boom de ya da, boom de ya da….”

“Hi, I’m calling about that paper sample?”

“No, that’s not what I was asking…”

“…and it really gets your colon clean!”

And upon sitting back down at my desk, it was decided amongst some of the designers that one of us is going to the store and buying cookie dough to bake in the toaster oven. At least, once one of the account executives stops baking her meat loaf in there.

I’m officially calling today a slow day at the office.

crossposted from fuzzdecay.com.

One of the ladies I’m blessed to share some square footage of carpet with 8 hours a day is pregnant. She was obviously desperate to have a child. She never said anything, but everyone in the office instinctually knew.

She announced her pregnancy when she was 5 weeks. No one announces their pregnancy that early. 20% of pregnancies spontaneously abort before 13 weeks, and then you look like an attention-starved idiot. Her premature announcement caused everyone to start mocking her by sticking out their stomachs and announcing that they were 2 days pregnant. She was none-the-wiser.

My now-defunct work buddy and I were walking during a break later that day and we both commented that it felt like someone in the office was pregnant. It’s hard to explain exactly how we could tell, but we definitely could. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that all the women here are synced up. Regardless, work buddy thought that it was me and I thought that it was her. We were both hoping it wouldn’t be pregnant coworker because we knew what kind of shenanigans would be pulled. Oh, and we were right.

She started “showing” the day after she announced her pregnancy. I’m under the impression that she thought, “Well, I’m pregnant, no need to continue to suck in my gut.” You don’t start showing at 5 weeks, the embryo is the size of a pea and has just barely settled in. She switched to wearing maternity clothes at 6 weeks.

Desperate for attention, she attempts to bait everyone into conversation about her developing fetus. When no one allows her to bait them, she just starts talking to herself about it! “Oh, I’m so tired! I can’t think straight! Oh, I want chicken but the smell of chicken makes me sick. Maybe I’ll just have some cake then. Baby loves cake! Oh, what was I just saying?” All of her mutterings to herself are that cyclical and that incoherent. I think the placenta is attached to her brain.

As I predicted, she started missing work incessantly. Not that she was at work much to begin with; there was constantly something happening that she’d need to leave work for. But after she announced her pregnancy, it was constant. 2-3 doctor’s visits a week, and she started screening daycare centers when she was 8 weeks, which required half a day off each time. Then came the “Oh, I’m so tired. I can’t work past 4:30″. I’m expecting her to make it to about her 5th month and then go on extended maternity leave.

She’s now 15 weeks. She actually went to some voodoo guy to wave a fucking locket over her stomach and tell her what the sex of her baby is because she can’t wait a week for her ultrasound. Voodoo guy announced that she was having twins, so now she’s running around the office telling anyone who will listen that she’s having twins.

Luckily, as one of the childless people in the office, I don’t have to listen to her banter directly. However, my desk is in a central location and I hear everything that goes on in the office, so I have to hear her banal stories repeated over and over to everyone else as they walk away from her.

crossposted from fuzzdecay.com.

In addition to the condom client at the day job, we work with lots of pharmaceutical companies. We roll out packaging and informational/promotional matierals for everything from prescription supplements to surgical scrub.

One of our clients is a diabetes testing supply distributor. They are quite possibly the most wasteful client I’ve ever come into contact with. They have redesigned their entire product line 3-4 times since I started working here, not quite 2 years ago. The constant redirection is compounded with the fact that they will only use southeast asian printing companies because of cost issues, and insist upon being intermediary between us and the press.

This results in us having to send mechanicals to the asian presses 4-5 times to get something that looks like the product we get from the american press we use for small runs. The language barrier keeps the client from telling the printer that their press isn’t calibrated correctly, so we have to keep 2 mechanicals: one with the correct colors for the american presses, and one with colors that are completely wrong for the asian ones. And yes, the files are set up in pantone (7 color in some cases) and still come back wrong.  As you can imagine, this is seriously confusing and results in designers not familiar with the process sending the wrong mechanicals to the various presses all the time.

Also, everything for this client is “super rush, we needed it yesterday”. And then, after we bust our asses getting whatever it is they need done, they wait 3-6 weeks to give us feedback. Recently, we had to roll out an intstruction manual and quick start guide for a new glucose monitor they’re going to put into production. It needed to be done in 2 days, so it was given to me immediately. I do a lot of work for this particular client because I’m the fastest designer in the office and I get most of the rush projects.

I rolled out the quickstart guide in about an hour, and was about to start on the instuction manual, when the client called and put the project on hold because they hadn’t cleared the name they were using with the manufacturer. The manufacturer hated the name and won’t distribute until the client comes up with something more suitable. This sort of thing happens all the time with them.

Another client of ours is a distributor of naturopathic medicine. They offer a wide range of products, but a lot of them seemingly have to do with digestion. One of their larger products is a colon cleansing kit. They actually gave my company two baskets full of their colon cleansing paraphenalia for Christmas.

I have a coworker who hordes everything that’s given away at work. We were recently cleaning out our sample drawer for this client, and my coworker grabbed one of the colon cleansing kits and announced that she was going to try it. For the rest of the day, everyone walked by her desk trying to talk her out of it. It was mostly variations of “what’s going to happen when you’re stuck in traffic and shit all over yourself?”

I was concerned about her taking the colon cleansing kit, because the previous week she’d come to work and announced that she’d sent her toddler to daycare with the stomach flu. We all told her that she was terrible to send a contagious child to daycare, and she suggested that she could take a colon cleansing kit home and give it to her kid. Perplexed, another coworker asked why because it’d just make the diarrhea worse. She said that her kid would “get it out all at once then”.

Luckily, we talked her out of taking home the colon cleansing kit. She ended up just taking home 3 bottles of fiber supplement.

crossposted from fuzzdecay.com.

I found out this morning when I woke up that my mom is leaving today. She really doesn’t tell me these things, I just woke up to her having all of her stuff packed. I feel kind of bad, like she may be leaving because I’ve been a less than stellar hostess.

Thursday we hit that sale at Intimacy and I found out that Chantelle has discontinued the Graphie bra. Graphie is quite possibly my favorite bra ever, it saddened my wallet greatly because I then bought as many in my size as I could. Friday we went out to eat at Ted’s Montana Grill, mostly because I wanted the signature salad, no bison was to be had. Saturday I worked half the day and the other half we visited her friend Kathy and had margaritas, pool and hot tub time. I know drinking and hot tubs are a bad idea but, meh, we’re all adults here. Sunday I spent the entire day working, and I think that may be what ran my mother off.

I took a job setting up a joomla website, and I’ve never set one completely up. I figured it couldn’t possibly be that hard. I spent Saturday and Sunday working on static comps, and then working on my business website. I’m using joomla for it, and thought it’d be good to practice on.

Turns out, joomla is a bit tricky. The parameters are named odd things, which makes the css pretty convoluted, but I’m figuring it out. The good thing about all this is that I got that final push to actually finish up my business’s website. I’ve been dragging my ass about that for a while.

crossposted from fuzzdecay.com.